Heaven Can Wait
by Lila2
Summary: Carly realizes the truth about her marriage to Sonny


Author's Note:

**Title:** "Heaven Can Wait"

**Author:** Lila

**Rating: **PG-13

**Character/Pairing:** Carly

**Spoiler:** none

**Length: **one-shot

**Summary:** Carly realizes the truth about her marriage to Sonny

**Disclaimer: **All characters belong to ABC

**Author's Note: **Again, older story, but still relevant. This isn't a Brenda story so much as it's a story about Brenda. I can't really explain it any better, but I think you'll all enjoy. Thanks for all the great comments and responses to my other stuff. You guys are great!

"But true love is a durable fire

In the mind ever burning;

Never sick, never old, never dead,"

- Sir Walter Raleigh, _As You Came from the Holy Land_

I never thought much about true love, soul mates, or destiny d–until I fell in love with Sonny. Love had always been such a battle for me, such a struggle to make the many men I loved love me back. Like I'd told Jason many years ago, _"My legs hurt so bad. I just feel like I've been running for a thousand years."_ I was always running, always fighting for love. But Sonny was different; I didn't have to push or fight. In fact, his love was something I didn't want; it just came naturally, snuck up on me in the dead of night the first time he laid his hand over the child growing inside me.

When I realized the true depth of my feelings for him–my love for him–everything seemed so clear. It's weird how your whole life can just change just like that, just in one moment. But in the instant I realized I truly, deeply loved Sonny Corinthos everything changed. All the loves of my past: Tony, AJ, especially Jason-they all seemed like preparation for the man I was with now. I just knew that from that moment on, everything would be different. That no matter how hard I pushed or he pushed back, no matter how many times I screwed up, said something stupid, did the wrong thing for the right reason–it would be okay between us.

Because we had love, true, real love. We'd weathered the storm and come out on top. We could survive betrayal, loss, grief, and pain. We would endure, because we weren't made of weak stuff. We could get by on our own, but we were always stronger together.

Sonny told me so. He stood there and cupped my face in his hands, looked into my eyes with such love and trust and told me so.

_**"Sometimes you drive me so crazy, I want to put my fist through a wall. Nine out of ten times, you do the exact wrong thing. But I know deep in my heart I'm stronger with you than I am without you." **_

I don't think I'd ever loved him more then I did in that moment. I'd told him in Martinque, on the night we ripped our own lives apart, that I wasn't going to be his obligation anymore. I needed more in my life than what he could give me.

_"Look, I don't know what's ahead of me, but I have to be valued and wanted, not tolerated." _

I'd meant it then and every day since. But I didn't think he understood it until that night in the safehouse with the rain pouring down. In that moment, when he said those words to me, all of the drama, the pain, the agony of our year apart melted away. He not only loved me, he relied on me, wanted me–needed me. All it took were those simple words and everything was right in my world.

At least for a little while.

It shouldn't have been a surprise to me, considering the course of my life. I should have seen it coming. Only now, in hindsight, can I see past the blinders I wore so willingly, only now can I see us for what we really were.

Just a few weeks ago I told him I was the woman for him. I looked into his haunted eyes and told him I'd watch over his dreams.

_"Okay, you can thank me now." _

_"Can I?" _

_"Mm-hmm-for knowing you better than you know yourself." _

_"Well, I don't think I'd go that far, but--." _

_"Okay, you can also thank me for giving you exactly what you need." _

_"Yeah?" _

_"Mm-hmm. And for being your soul mate." _

_"Soul mates. That's nice." _

I didn't get what I wanted in return. There was no, "You're my soul mate too," just "that's nice." At the time I thought it was Sonny being difficult, Sonny playing with my head the way he loves to. I thought it was Sonny using actions to show me what he couldn't say with words.

I was wrong, so very wrong.

Because the moment I learned Brenda was alive, I knew I'd lost. It's funny; I didn't even know I was fighting, but I knew I'd lost all the same. Brenda was off-limits; the one thing he couldn't talk about. We'd been married three times, for over two years, and had countless talks about Lily; the number of times we've talked about Brenda could fit on one hand. I knew he loved her, loved her so deeply and passionately he lost himself inside her. But she was dead, gone, out of our lives forever--and the day she came back she rocked our world to its core.

I believed Sonny the day I confronted him about Brenda. I meant it when I said I'd let him go, no strings attached. I loved him that much, still love him so much, that I'd let him go. I think that's real love; that's the love dreams cling to. I loved him enough to let him be with another woman, if that's what made him happy.

He chose me. He said it was me he wanted, me he loved; me he was choosing. It never occurred to me he might be lying, not to me, but to himself, because when he cradled my face in his hands, put his mouth on mine, I could feel something foreign on my lips, something borrowed, something that wasn't mine.

It took a few weeks for me to see it clearly, see things for what they really were, but when the pieces fell into place it all suddenly sense. We were out together, celebrating our second chance at happiness–at love–when she walked into the room and bottom dropped out of my world.

My back was to her, and I was too consumed with toasting our future to notice, but I felt it, felt the tingle of electricity, the heated tension fill the room. I'd always thought of my life with Sonny as dancing in the fire, feeling the glorious heat against my skin because it meant I was alive, he was alive, and our love was real. I could feel the heat against my skin this time, but it was different; I was still dancing around the flames, but it wasn't my fire.

From the instant their eyes met something changed in the air. It was so real it was tangible. I could feel the heat between them from thirty-feet away. I could feel the longing, the pain, the want–the passion. All they had to do was look at one another and their feeling were there for everyone to see, especially me.

I'd told Sonny that I understood their game. I knew enough about their past to know the way they worked, the games the played. I told him I knew it, I understood it, but that I wasn't willing to accept it.

_"It tells me that the two of you are doing your dance again, okay? One of you has to pretend that you don't care so the other one can follow the other around yearning, and I guess that's Brenda now." _

But he assured me I was wrong, that he was done with their game and had found solace with me. Looking into his eyes that night I believed him. I could see the promise there, the commitment to the family and wife he loved so much.

His eyes are different now. They burn with a light that I've never seen before, burn with promises of a desperate love; they burn for her. When he looks at me that light goes out, and all I see are shadows and darkness. I see his struggle, between what's right and wrong–because she's so wrong for him, so bad for him, but she feels so right. Because when he looks into her eyes he sees himself and reminders of the man he used to be, the man he was with her. . .the man he can't be with me.

She was there when he learned to love, learned to hate, learned to forgive. The lessons of his life are as much hers as they are his. Those eyes, her big brown eyes, so like mine yet so different–her eyes are filled with memories of what used to be and never stopped being. . .will never stop being.

He thinks I don't understand his past with Brenda, thinks I write her off as a woman he once loved and lost, only I know he didn't just lose her–he lost himself too. I understood perfectly when he stood in front of me, looked into my terrified eyes, and lost himself in her.

_**"Alcazar is desperate for her. He's obsessed with her. She's like a drug to him. He doesn't care if she hates him or loves him, as long as she's with him." **_

He thinks that speech was about Alcazar, and perhaps on some level it was, but I know better–even if he doesn't. I know their history: the obsession, the passion, the possession. I know she was his drug, his weakness, his soul, and when he looks at her, even from a distance, with his beautiful burning eyes, he can't move past her. She's in his blood, beating fast and furious, scorching hot through his veins with every breath he takes.

All men have weaknesses; she happens to be his. I know he wants to change, to be different, to be mine. But he'll never be mine, not completely. Because she's burned in him so hard and deep he can't separate what's hers and what's his.

He still doesn't see it, and maybe he never will, but I'm his wife–I see him for what he is. He'll never be over her. We could stay together forever, till we have gray in our hair and lines on our face, and he'll still burn for her. Because when I looked into her eyes at the police station, grabbed her wrist and forced her to look at the woman Sonny had chosen, the woman Sonny now loved, I could see him staring back at me. The same need, the same burning fire, the same passion I thought was all for me was staring back at me plain as day–staring at me through her eyes. Looking at her was like looking through him.

All the lost dreams and broken promises, the ghosts and demons, the blood on his hands–they were there in her eyes. Everything I ever wanted to know about him I could see in her. Their souls were so intertwined, so entangled, that to tear them apart would be to destroy them both.

I pulled away as if I'd been burned, because in a way I had been. I was playing with fire, empting fate, coming between two people whose destiny was written in the stars.

Remember when I said everything could change in just one moment? Well, that was the moment for me. The real moment when I realized the course of my life. I was married to a man who loved me, desired me, wanted me above all others–but burned for another. And he always would.

_**"There are women who make you stronger, and then there are women who cut your heart out. And they may not even know they're doing it. They may be thinking that they're loving you. And it's not their fault that they're more addictive than heroin. And even at their sweetest, they're the worst thing you could ever have." **_

Brenda may be his weakness, but I'm what makes him stronger. I'm his rock, I'm his support, I'm his strength in times of pain, sorrow, turmoil. He needs me to be the man he wants to be today, even as he still clings to the man he was so long ago. I'll be a good wife to him, and he'll be a good husband to me, and if I'm lucky, the ghost that haunts us will stay tucked away in the hidden recesses of his heart where he keeps it safe.

I'm not stupid. I know my life will never be perfect. I know I'll never have him the way I want to, because no matter how hard he tries, and trust me, he tries hard, he can't stay away from her. Just being near her, watching a smile curve her lips or her eyes light up with laughter–that's what keeps him going. Knowing she's happy, that's what keeps his soul alive.

Our second chance at life is his opportunity to start over again and make up for past mistakes. It's his redemption. But no matter which way I play it, as much as I'm his redemption, she's his salvation. For as long as I live, I'll have his heart–but she'll always have his soul.

Once, a long time ago, he told Jason he'd die seeing her face. I wasn't supposed to know, but I did anyway. I stood there on the penthouse stairs, like I'd done so many times before, and listened to my husband mourn the woman he loved.

_**"Brenda died four years ago today. Actually Jax let her die. The big blond idiot couldn't keep her safe and a light went out in her life and mine. I try not to, but I gotta tell you something, I couldn't help but think of what she went through that night. Was there a moment when she realized she was going to die? I told you I'd die seeing Brenda's face. I just wonder if she died seeing mine." **_

I tell myself I'm putting too much into words, not believing enough in actions, but I can't get those words out of my mind. When he nearly died Christmas Eve he said he'd come back for me. Maybe he did. He told me he saw angels up there. Angels and light and his children playing in a garden. Lily was there, watching over them the way she'd always watched over him. His safe place was now their safe place too. At the time I thought it was noble, almost romantic, that he left heaven to come back for me. But now. . .I don't know what to think.

He said he'd die seeing her face; those aren't words to be taken lightly. I have to wonder, when he closed his eyes and stood there on the edge of life, if it's because of her that the turned back. Maybe when he looked at the face of death, it wasn't the face he wanted to see, because there, in his garden of hope and light where his angels played, the greatest angel of them all wasn't there. She was down here on earth, not in a watery grave, but breathing free air.

Heaven could wait until she was there to join him.

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